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Feel Like
Chapter Two
It was on a car ride to their mother’s house
On the way to tell her you were gone
Practicing my speech to her along the way
Knowing there was nothing you’d done wrong
Feel like I just wanna cry for you
Feel like I would give my life for you
Of thee I sing America home of the brave
Family days and late nights with my friends
We wave goodbye their mothers send them on the way
We look inside and find
Feel like I’m singing this song for you and you and you…
Richmond, Virginia – Eight Years and Three Children Later
On September 10, 2001, at around 11 p.m., your mom and I dozed off on the couch watching television. We awakened to screaming. I didn’t think it was the twins and Hatcher had always been such a sound sleeper. Thinking something was terribly wrong, I sprung to my feet, sock footed, and began skipping stairs as fast as I could to Hatcher’s room.
I didn’t make it. On the second set of stairs my sock slipped off the hardwood step and I fell forward. All of my weight came down on the bridge of my nose, crushing the three bones that meet there. I grabbed my nose in an attempt to stop the profuse bleeding. Your mom barely noticed as she hurdled past me racing to get to Hatcher. He was standing at the top of the stairs disheveled but unharmed (bad dream I guess). Lightheaded, I asked your mom to bring me a blanket and washcloth and to call our neighbor, Ned Trigg. Ned appeared in less than a minute. He was unclear from talking with your mom whether I had broken my nose or my neck. He had been watching Monday night football in a pair of gym shorts and on his run to our house had thrown a pair of khakis on over them. The zipper was not yet zipped when he entered the living room. I was still on the floor.
“Dude, your zipper’s down,” I said, trying to find some humor in the situation. But Ned was focused. He helped me into our Explorer and drove me to Retreat Hospital.
“No Ma’am, I have not been drinking,” I said to the emergency room nurse at midnight. Eight sutures later, I returned home at 4 a.m. with a bandage over my broken nose. Exhausted, I set my alarm to get up for three morning court cases and contemplated whether I would travel to Northern Virginia that afternoon to play an event for my friend State Delegate Dave Albo.
The next morning, with a few hours of sleep under my belt, I hopped out of the shower. My head throbbed. But I had to get to work. While I started to dress for work something got my attention. The news on the little television in our bedroom indicated that some type of jet crashed into one of the World Trade Centers in New York City. Along with the rest of our country, your mom and I watched in disbelief that such an accident of this magnitude could occur. But our horror heightened as we watched the second jet slam into the second World Trade Center. Suddenly, we realized that the second occurrence could not have been a coincidence. And I soon learned that another jet hit the Pentagon, and yet another had crashed into an open field in Pennsylvania. I grabbed my case files and leaped into my car.
Still stunned, I called Delegate Albo on my cell phone. “Dave, is the event still on?” I asked.
“Damn right it is,” he said. “That’s what these terrorists want us to do. They want us to stop what we’re doing and to deviate from our lives and our way of life.”
I didn’t tell Dave about my nose since at this point it seemed so trivial. Dave didn’t realize when I talked to him that a plane had just hit the Pentagon and that many lives were lost there in addition to New York. Minutes after our phone conversation he called back.
“Some of my constituents have been injured and killed at the Pentagon,” he said. “I just can’t do it. I need to check on them and their families. I’m canceling but thanks anyway and tell Jessica thanks also.”
“Sure,” I said, “Good luck and my prayers go out to your constituents.”
On my way to the Henrico County Courthouse I began thinking about my friends and classmates that might work in the World Trade Centers or in New York City. I handled my cases quickly and on a television regularly used for video trial exhibits, I watched the news coverage of the tragedy. There, in a hallway of the Circuit Court judges’ chambers, we saw the shocking image on the screen. The first Tower fell. I continued to think about any friends that I might have in New York. I wondered whether they could be in danger.
I knew that my fraternity brothers, Bill Campbell, Chris McFadden and Randy Gonseth worked in New York City. “Could they have been in the Trade Centers?” I wondered. I thought about the time I had visited the World Trade Centers in the early ‘90s with Curt, my best friend from law school. He had visited from Texas and Randy gave us a tour of his office in Tower One. But within a day or two, I was relieved to discover that Chris didn’t work that close. Bill was overseas. And thankfully, Randy no longer officed at the World Trade Centers. My friend, Tina, who I had played a lot of music with, was to work in one of the buildings that day but she had scheduled a doctor’s appointment that morning. Before the appointment, she had watched smoke billowing out of the Trade Center she should have occupied. Some people I knew were closer. Scott Anderson, I found out, led numerous people to safety after the first plane hit. Eight minutes after Scott and his group evacuated, the second plane pummeled into their building.
The good news was short-lived. Within days of the attack, my close friend and University of Richmond classmate, Bob Watson notified me that Thomas Clark, another classmate of ours we called “TC” never returned to his family from the World Trade Center. I couldn’t believe it. At 37, he was doing well professionally and was blessed with a wife, Lisa, and two beautiful young children, all of whom were the loves of his life. TC and I had a great relationship but I hadn’t seen him in almost 10 years. In college and the few times I saw him after graduation, he always had a smile on his face and he would make me laugh about something. His untimely death and the indescribable impact that it would have on his family caused me a deep sense of grief and emptiness. I found myself checking the University of Richmond Website many times each day to learn more about the most recent years in TC’s life and about the priceless family he and his wife had built and nurtured.
From the website, I learned that another friend and classmate also lost his life. Michael Finnegan was 37 and graduated in the same class as TC and me. Finney, as we called him, was also blessed with a wonderful wife, Erin, and three young children. His wife had recently given birth to their third child and, within days of his death, he had experienced his oldest daughter’s first day of kindergarten. Mike worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and was on the phone when the first plane crashed near his office that morning. Mike could make me laugh as much as TC. He was a member of our honor council when I was student government president and I remember supporting him wholeheartedly for a position on that council in our earlier years at Richmond when I was a student senator. He used to sneak me into closed SAE parties so that I could hang with my SAE friends even though I was in a different fraternity. Any time an overzealous SAE brother would kick me out, Finney would usher me to the back door so I could have another 30 minutes or so before I got kicked out again. We used to watch UR baseball games together while competing in a game called the “Case Chase” which involved a case of beer, a black magic marker and your bare belly. By the end of either game, neither of us knew who had won.
When I thought about TC, Mike, their wives and their children, I could only picture our family. I had an overwhelming sense of guilt which caused my entire perspective to change. Before September 11th, I complained about dealing with all three of you in diapers and crying at the same time. But after, I realized immediately that changing diapers and many of the other mundane tasks we face as parents and human beings are in fact, priceless. I began to think, “What if that would have been me?”
Well it wasn’t, but my life changed. My outlook changed I began to appreciate life so much more I began to savor even the unpleasant moments with you guys. I resolved that I would pursue my dreams again as I had 10 years earlier. I decided to stop talking and to take action to record my music. We can talk about our dreams until we’re blue in the face. But, we will never realize them unless we act. So, I began to develop three components of my CD project. First, I recorded the songs so that all three of you would always be able to listen to Dad. Second, I wrote these short memoirs to share with you some of the experiences that shaped my perspectives on life. Third, I decided to use my project to raise money for ASK, an organization that supports children with cancer and their families.ASK is amazing. It is a group of caring and loving people who provide social, emotional, spiritual and financial support to children with cancer and their families. ASK supports the pediatric hematology and oncology clinic at the Medical College of Virginia. At any given time, the clinic treats 300 sick children. These diseases can be devastating to the lifestyles and morale of these children and their families. ASK makes their burden easier to bear. Many affected families participate as volunteers for ASK in an effort to give back. Many of us who have not been directly affected by childhood cancer give their time and financial support as well. The work and support ASK provides moves me. I watch ASK make a difference and I am proud, honored and humbled to give a piece of my heart to ASK, its children and its families.
Raising awareness about ASK is my effort to give back to our community. It embodies my appreciation for our good fortune that you are, now, healthy and I hope will lighten the loads of families who have a sick child. If anything happens to me, I hope you will enjoy Dad’s music and will benefit from the life perspectives that I sing about in these songs. I especially hope that you will give to your community and to the world around you and that you will encourage others to do the same by your example. Think globally by acting locally. I pray you understand that life is a gift given to us from God and that we are indeed blessed to live in a free country. Emanate your appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy. When Americans do not agree, our political process allows us to express ourselves whether our beliefs are popular or cavalier.
I wrote Feel Like for Mike, TC, and their families — and for all of us as Americans. I wrote it for Fourth of July picnics, the freedom we have to worship in any way that we choose, for the golden haystacks that smell of clover in the field, neighborhood gatherings, Little League games, Saturday tailgates and the back seats of station wagons. I wrote it for family dinners and holidays together, free speech, fraternity and sorority parties, high school proms, being there for a friend in need, summers at the beach or at the river, sunsets and sunrises unbridled by fog or cloudy gloom, nights that your mom and I pretend that we are teenagers, and for the times we scold you and then run into another room so you can not hear us laugh at what you did.
I hope Feel Like lifts you up, makes you happy and empowers you to appreciate what you have. I began writing this chapter at the University of Richmond in the summer. It was hot that day so I ducked into the student commons and ran into Max Vest, the director of student activities. We exchanged what was new in our lives and I told Max about the recording project.“What was the name of your old band?” he asked
“Acoustic Fun,” I replied.
Max walked me towards his office and pointed to the wall outside, “I just hung this recently and thought you would like to see it,” he said. It was a framed poster: Spring Music Fest March 1993 Acoustic Fun – Indecision – The Dave Matthews Band. “If you want to use it for your project, just let me know,” he said.
I told Max that I had just edited a part of my book that very day describing my first introduction to Dave at that Music Festival. The coincidence of seeing Max, and the poster brought a more pronounced direction and spiritual sense of purpose to me.
After visiting with Max, I drifted towards some tables outside the Boatwright Memorial Library to find a quiet place to begin this chapter. Students’ voices hummed around the tables in front of the library so I decided to walk a short distance to the fountain outside of Puryear Hall for a more serene space. At the fountain I saw four marble benches around it I had never noticed before. When I got closer, I could read an inscription on the first bench: “In Memory of Michael Finnegan, March 14, 1964 – September 11, 2001.” Next to Mike’s bench was another bench that read, “In Memory of Thomas Clark, December 13, 1963 – September 11, 2001”. My body tingled. My sense of purpose became crystal clear. I began to weep, as I had when my producer, John Morand, played Feel Like in the studio after I did the final vocal. I wept again for the loss of Finney and TC, for the loss of Don Jones and Michael Brady, two other Richmond alumni who were sons, husbands and dads. Their benches, too, adorned the fountain. I cried for my lack of understanding the answers to hard questions, “Why? For what?”. Tears later fell for the joy brought to me from God, from my love of music, from your mother and especially for the joy that the three of you give to us each day.